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To Tip or Not to Tip?

PhilliesDeacs said:
Interesting article: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/...ishing_tipping.single.html#pagebreak_anchor_2

Anyone encountered a tip-free establishment yet? Or anyone in the industry care to weigh in?
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I've been to several
I haven't seen one where the service is bad, but I don't know if that's coincidental. I also live in a city with generally poor service and generally entitled wait staff. (Sorry, you don't get 20% tip on a $200 meal for 3 and $120 of wine when we waited around for 10 minutes to get our menu and the food took forever)
Of course, foreign countries, where tipping is either a much smaller % of the bill or not generally accepted have the best service.
 
Good article. Great points about the power dynamic and discrimination.
 
When I waited tables (awhile ago), servers made like $2.00 per hour and the cooks were in the mid teens at least. The cooks' pay was always more steady while ours was speculative. I have never heard of a restaurant where the server and cooks make the same base pay. Of course that is unfair.
 
I think my MIL's head would explode if she went to a restaurant that charged an 18% service fee in place of accepting tips. I have never seen her tip over 10% for a meal (thankfully for the servers I make up the difference after she leaves the table) and once she actually had 8 people sit at two tables of 4 when we went out for her birthday dinner so as not to incur an automatic charge. The kicker is I was paying for the meal so it didn't impact her whatsoever.
 
good stuff. one thing about this is with a further move toward a service economy this would be good. with servers being a higher end job in places that merit it.
 
I can get on board with that. There's a bar here in Winston and the bartender always charges me for fewer drinks than she serves me, probably because she knows she'll get a 30-50% tip if she does. Awesome for her, and awesome for me, but too much of that and it can eat into the bottom line of the establishment, provided they're not building that loss into the cost of the drinks to begin with.
 
BigTreeDeac said:
I think my MIL's head would explode if she went to a restaurant that charged an 18% service fee in place of accepting tips. I have never seen her tip over 10% for a meal (thankfully for the servers I make up the difference after she leaves the table) and once she actually had 8 people sit at two tables of 4 when we went out for her birthday dinner so as not to incur an automatic charge. The kicker is I was paying for the meal so it didn't impact her whatsoever.
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You should be able to shame your MIL into tipping more. I did that with my parents, who were generally 15% tippers.
 
qcdeac said:
You should be able to shame your MIL into tipping more. I did that with my parents, who were generally 15% tippers.
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When did 15% become shameful tipping? That seemed like standard practice while I was growing up.
 
qcdeac said:
You should be able to shame your MIL into tipping more. I did that with my parents, who were generally 15% tippers.
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You gotta pick your battles my man and this just isn't one of them for me. Besides I used up most of my "shaming" points to shame her into not smoking around my child. She apparently had never quite understood second hand smoking and so thought she would be allowed to sit 5 feet away from the baby and smoke so long as she didn't blow it right at him.
 
TBR said:
When did 15% become shameful tipping? That seemed like standard practice while I was growing up.
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It was when I grew up too. But they would tip max 15% even if the service was great. Shaming is probably a strong word in my parent's case, but BigTree should "educate" his MIL to get her to tip more. She's obviously cheap as hell if she wants to split a birthday party up to avoid paying a reasonable tip.

BigTree, certainly your wife helped you fight the battle of smoking around your child.
 
I used to tip 15% unless the service was particularly good or particularly bad - in which case I would adjust up or down. I have moved upward a bit to a standard rate of around 17.5% (i basically figure 15% and 20% in my head and go somewhere in between). I give 20% as a reward for especially good service and will go down to 15% or less if it is really bad.

This is on meals. I usually end up tipping bartenders more since I just throw them a dollar or a five or something, depending on what I ordered.

I do wonder how this whole system got started... Why don't restaurants just pay their servers a competitive wage like other industries? Then their costs would just be built into the food prices.
 
A question I have been meaning to ask the board and the article brought up... Do you tip on take-out food? The check always has the space for a tip but I typically mark through it and write the total below - but I feel vaguely bad when I do so. On the other hand, what would I be tipping for and who would get it? The cashier? How are they paid - like servers or like 'regular' people?
 
pretty sure portland servers have standard minimum wage.

service here is definitely less than what you'd get in other places, though. it's a lot more hands-off (which is kind of nice when you're trying to eat, but also annoying when you need more water, etc). this is not true of nicer joints; at those places the service is right on point for what you'd want/expect... i imagine because they're more competitive positions. that all said, tipping is still very much expected.
 
scooter84 said:
A question I have been meaning to ask the board and the article brought up... Do you tip on take-out food? The check always has the space for a tip but I typically mark through it and write the total below - but I feel vaguely bad when I do so. On the other hand, what would I be tipping for and who would get it? The cashier? How are they paid - like servers or like 'regular' people?
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someone had to assemble your order; i typically throw on a couple bucks. not 20% or anything like that, but just something to acknowledge it wasnt created by magic.
 
scooter84 said:
A question I have been meaning to ask the board and the article brought up... Do you tip on take-out food? The check always has the space for a tip but I typically mark through it and write the total below - but I feel vaguely bad when I do so. On the other hand, what would I be tipping for and who would get it? The cashier? How are they paid - like servers or like 'regular' people?
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I generally tip a few bucks or 10% on take-out food. If I go to a restaurant and order drink or two after ordering to-go, I usually tip around 15%.
 
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